... insanely complex for no apparent reason (like trying to use libpng ...)

This is just wrong.

libpng isn't entirely trivial, but it's actually very simple to use, and quite flexible as well—e.g., it's easy to make the library handle all the weird cases automatically itself, but the option exists for you to handle them too if desired. All in all, I'd say it nicely hits the sweet spot between ease-of-use and power.

It's vastly better designed than many other image libraries (e.g. all the horrid examples that only support whole-image I/O into some awful least-common-denominator image format).

or (c) the story on RT wasn't true. Given RT's usual really, really, bad fact-checking, (c) seems pretty likely...

From what I read, they've currently got four Iron Dome batteries, with a fifth due to be delivered soon. However that isn't enough to cover all the areas at risk, so they're moving them around randomly and in secret.

Although this means that Hamas doesn't know which areas are currently not protected, they sometimes get lucky and target such an area by chance. According to the story (sorry, I can't remember where it was), almost all the rockets that make it through are such chance shots into unprotected areas.

they say a plane is efficient compared to a car but forget that cars and planes don't use the same fuel so it's bullshit, but I'm hoping their numbers are right

The numbers you give for the 747 don't look unreasonable to me, but it seems worth noting that jet airplane efficiency is downright awful compared to other mass-transit. While jet planes are the only practical solution in many cases (overseas, extremely long haul), they're overused in the U.S., where poorly developed regional transit leads to an over-reliance on inefficient (in terms of fuel usage, landling slots, etc) regional jets. It would be a good idea to better develop regional and medium-distance rail, and concentrate on using air-travel for cases where it works better (many countries have already done this of course).

5 gallons of jet fuel per mile is around 450MJ/km; if we assume a 747 holds 450 seats, that's about 1MJ/seat-km. A bit of googling suggests that this is roughly accurate, but probably based on cruising efficiency only; takeoff/landing is much less efficient, and regional jets are signficantly less efficient than large ones.

Modern HSR (and modern non-HSR electric rail) uses around 0.15MJ/seat-km or better....

Seems pretty obvious to me: The Pilot HI-TEC-C 0.25mm

Super thin, extremely consistent, line (no blobbing, faint-spots, or slow starts), widely available in a range of colors, and rather cheap.

The HI-TEC-C line has been around for ages, and there's a reason it remains popular in the crazily volatile world of mass-market pens...

It's yet another nice feature of Japanese publishing that a large proportion of Japanese fiction, even cheap paperbacks*, come with a built-in bookmark in the form of a small sewn-in ribbon.

* "bunko," the most common form of paperback in Japan, are a wonder—they use flexible thin paper of much higher quality than American paperbacks, and as a result the books are also both flexible and thin (and so easy to read one-handed on the train!), yet very durable and easy to read (the better paper allows higher contrast and higher-quality printing). They've got thoughtful features like ribbon bookmarks. And yet, they're also on average cheaper than American paperbacks!

Eh?! I dunno about the rest of Milton's stuff, but Paradise Lost really is a great book.

Yeah, it's very slow to read, but the language is absolutely mesmerizing and affecting.

"Well I planned to eat it, but ooooooooh, string! STring! String!"

It also depends on what you're doing with it—sometimes anti-aliasing does the job (even if it's a little uglier), but sometimes you really do want high-resolution.

For instance, Japanese phones with very high DPI displays (approx the same as the apple retina) take advantage of the high resolution by displaying complex Japanese characters at extremely small sizes to fit more on the screen. For instance, when displaying a dictionary completion screen, when there are potentially hundreds of completions, it's far more convenient to scan a bunch of characters on one screen (even at small sizes) than to page though a bunch of screens; lower-resolution+anti-aliasing doesn't work well in this application because many characters simply become indistinguishable blobs, and one doesn't have the context that usually allows one to recognize poorly rendered characters.

No it's not.

There's no requirement that judges stick to mild language; it's not at all unusual for judges to be frustrated with obviously stupid games played by lawyers arguing a case, and using harsh language does not indicate prejudice. That it didn't indicate prejudice in this case is abundantly clear from the context of the statement—Apple's request was simply bizarre, and her remark simply reflected that (using a standard epithet which means exactly that).

If Apple wants to be treated more "professionally," it's very clear how they should precede: act more professionally themselves and stop playing stupid games in court.

Er, but that's completely untrue. Sexual harrassment has always been the perview of type-A and extrovert "guy culture."

Kindle has supported non-latin scripts since the Kindle 3 model that came out in 2010

Hmm, how about vertical text layout?

So does the kindle support ePub yet ...?

(or non-latin scripts?)

I once took a bus from Seattle to Pittsburgh, about 3500km.

Sitting on a bus for three days, non-stop, was ... not so fun... :(

[Very long-distance trains, by contrast, are actually quite fun, even in the U.S. and Canada where they're pretty slow; rail's great way to travel if you've got some time...]